Tax Returns

Although the deadline for filing income tax is months away, the American Assn. of Retired Persons is looking for area residents to help senior citizens prepare their returns. Volunteers must have an interest and ability to fill out tax returns and will be needed for about four hours a week Feb. 1 through April 15. Each year, more than 30,000 volunteers around the country help prepare an estimated 1.5 million federal, state and local returns.

The Internal Revenue Service is auditing Walt Disney Co.'s income tax returns for 1993 through 1995 and plans to dispute some of the company's tax filings, Disney disclosed Wednesday. "While the audit is not complete, the IRS has recently indicated its intention to challenge certain of the company's tax positions," Disney reported in a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Disney said the dispute could force it to make undisclosed additional payments to the IRS.

As MBA students, we are taught that, when evaluating financial statements, the devil is usually found in the details ("Simon's Disclosure Raises New Doubts," July 24). Had the media and public been given only two hours to look over Enron's books, Kenneth Lay would probably still be riding in a limousine to the office. Bill Simon should give Californians a reasonable opportunity to decide whether he has the acumen and ethics to lead our state. He should make his tax records completely available and then allow us to give fair judgment.

President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton made three mistakes on their tax returns concerning Whitewater and recently paid $3,400 in taxes and penalties, the White House said Friday. Tax experts commissioned by the Clintons found two incorrect interest deductions and a failure in one instance to declare a capital gain. The experts said the fragmentary record made it impossible to determine whether the Clintons made additional errors.

John Gotti may have committed the same error that led Al Capone to his downfall--ignoring the IRS, a witness testified at the reputed Mafia boss' federal trial on racketeering and murder charges. An Internal Revenue Service supervisor produced records showing Gotti filed no income tax returns from 1984 to 1989, although his employers reported paying him more than $210,000 in that period.

Imagine this: * Fire races through your physical plant, ruining inventory and equipment and leaving you shellshocked and bewildered. * Your insurance adjuster, noting that the fire has destroyed your paper records, asks to see copies of your federal and state income tax returns. * Thinking that this will help fix the value of the inventory and equipment lost in the fire, you ask your accountant for copies and hand them over.

The lawyer for Rep. Enid Greene Waldholtz (R-Utah) said Friday that she had not filed income tax returns for 1994 and that the House Ethics Committee had begun an inquiry into her false financial disclosure forms. Also Friday, a federal judge lifted travel restrictions on Joseph Waldholtz, her estranged husband, at the request of federal prosecutors. Charles H.

Paying taxes may never be fun, but it may soon get easier. Under a pilot program, the state of California will volunteer to fill out the annual income tax returns for 10,000 residents with lower incomes and uncomplicated finances. If the test works, as many as 3 million of the state's 14 million taxpayers could be eligible for the program. Taxpayers with deductions and dependents, however, will still have to file the old-fashioned way.

Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) more than quadrupled his $75,100 congressional salary and Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) nearly tripled his with other income they and their wives received last year, according to 1986 tax returns made available to The Times Wednesday. The disclosures were made at a time when elected officials, responding to concerns about possible conflict of interest between public duty and private gain, increasingly are opening their personal finances to scrutiny.

Taxpayers celebrating Wednesday's passing of the 1986 tax-filing deadline should not cheer too loudly: the Internal Revenue Service is getting tougher--and better--at catching tax cheaters. After a decades-long decline, the odds of getting audited will increase significantly this year, thanks in part to additional auditors, improved return-examination techniques and changes under tax reform, IRS officials and tax experts say.